Pie Chart - History

History

The earliest known pie chart is generally credited to William Playfair's Statistical Breviary of 1801, in which two such graphs are used. This invention was not widely used at first; the French engineer Charles Joseph Minard was one of the first to use it in 1858, in particular in maps where he needs to add information in a third dimension. It has been said that Florence Nightingale invented it, though in fact she just popularised it and she was later assumed to have created it due to the obscurity of Playfair's creation.

  • One of William Playfair's pie charts in his Statistical Breviary, depicting the proportions of the Turkish Empire located in Asia, Europe and Africa before 1789.

  • Minard's map using pie charts to represent the cattle sent from all around France for consumption in Paris (1858).

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